Genealogist Newsletter- February 7, 2026

07 Feb Genealogist Newsletter- February 7, 2026

GENEALOGIST- CHEROKEE BILL’S BROTHER AND THE CONTINUED VIOLENCE

We covered the bad deeds, apprehension, trial, and hanging of Crawford Goldsby, aka Cherokee Bill, on March 17, 1896, in the last couple of editions. Cherokee Bill

His brother Clarence Goldsby sought revenge for his brother’s death. He killed Ike Rogers, who had captured Cherokee Bill, on the platform of the Missouri Pacific Depot with at least one hundred witnesses. The witnesses reported that Clarence Goldsby shot Rogers multiple times, including in the back of the neck, and then stole the Winchester rifle that Rogers had taken from Cherokee Bill during his capture. Clarence was described as a Cherokee Negro, and a boy who never got into trouble.

Clarence Goldsby was never apprehended or held legally accountable for the murder of Rogers. In late 1896, he was charged with horse stealing in Fort Gibson, tried, and acquitted. You can see in the adjacent 1898 article that he was involved in a bank robbery. Clarence afterwards enlisted in the U.S. Army and made good. He married Olie Barnard in 1907 and had children. He was recorded as a farmer in 1910. He died in 1911, at age 30, in St. Louis, MO, of pneumonia.

The judge at Cherokee Bill’s trial. “Hanging Judge” Parker (1838-1896), was appointed as the first U.S. district judge for the Western District of AR (sitting in Fort Smith, AR, on the border), which also had jurisdiction over the adjacent Indian Territory (future OK, 1907) to the west from 1875 until his death in 1896.

Parker became known as the “hanging judge” of the American frontier / Old West because he sentenced many convicts to death. In serving 21 years on the federal bench, Judge Parker tried 13,490 cases. In more than 8,500 of these cases, the defendant either pleaded guilty or was convicted at trial. Parker sentenced 160 people to death; 79 were executed. The other 81 either died while incarcerated, were pardoned, or had their sentences commuted.

 

 

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GENEALOGIST- FROM ADAM AND EVE WORKING THROUGH THE LEGENDARY DANISH KINGS

In the last edition, we left off with Eric II, son or grandson of Ragnar Lothbrok, King of Denmark, depending upon your source. Then the line goes to Canute I, who was considered a descendant of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok through his son Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye (pictured below left), making him a grandson, though the connection is through myth and legend rather than solid historical fact.

Frotho VI (pictured below, middle) is a figure appearing in legendary Danish history, notably featured in Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum as one of six kings named Frotho. He is often associated with semi-mythical narratives and is sometimes identified in genealogy as a 9th-century figure, specifically linked as the father of Gorm the Old (Enske).

However, they’ve confused this Gorm Enske with his grandson, Gorm the Old, and have the connecting generation as Harold Parcus or Harthacnut I of Denmark (pictured below right), who was a semi-legendary King of Denmark. The old Norse story Ragnarssona þáttr makes Harthacnut, son of the semi-mythic Viking chieftain Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye (skipping several generations), himself one of the sons of the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok. The saga, in turn, makes Harthacnut the father of the historical king, Gorm the Old (pictured to the right, upon learning of the death of his son Canute, 19th-century painting by August Carl Vilhelm Thomsen).

Then they leap from Gorm to the father of Gonnor de Crepon, whom they name as Herbastus De Crepon.

More on that in the next edition, when we go to Normandy.

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GENEALOGIST- ANOTHER STORY FROM THE TRAIL

I’d shared previous stories about my Grand Canyon hike: Grand Canyon. This is a story of a conversation I had with my friend Charles, who grew up to be a teamster bus driver in Yosemite. He succeeded in escaping from the big city and making a living in the mountains!

He called me one day after parking the bus, having unloaded a group of tourists at Glacier Point, and going down the Panorama Trail for a short hike. The Panorama offers spectacular views of the High Sierra, Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, and Vernal Fall, connecting to the Valley floor at Happy Isles.

I have hiked the Panorama Trail twice, and I am envious that Charles could do it while on a work break. While we were talking, he suddenly said, “Oh my god, I can’t believe it, let me call you back”. Of course, lots of not-so-good “oh my god” type things can happen on a trail along a steep cliffside, so I was anxious for Charles to call me back.

He calls me back and says he passed two folks going up the trail, one of whom he now believes was probably the Chief Ranger or the Superintendent of Yosemite, and the other, more interesting, was his hiking partner, Shelton Johnson.

Shelton is a park ranger with the U.S. National Park Service and works in Yosemite National Park. As of 2023, he had worked at Yosemite for 30 of his 37 years in the field. Johnson began his career in Yellowstone National Park in 1987. He had numerous appearances in the Ken Burns documentary miniseries The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, broadcast on PBS from September 27 to October 2, 2009, and was called the “unexpected star” of the film. Johnson attended a White House preview of the film that day, where he discussed the documentary with President Barack Obama.

Johnson is best known for his work on documenting the history of the Buffalo Soldiers (pictured at left in a Buffalo Soldier uniform). He created a website called Shadow Soldiers based on a fictitious letter to the Buffalo Soldiers at the parks, and he writes and maintains a segment on the Buffalo Soldiers on Yosemite National Park’s official website. He wrote and performed in a living history production titled Yosemite Through the Eyes of a Buffalo Soldier, 1904.

Buffalo Soldiers (below) were United States Army regiments composed exclusively of Black American soldiers, formed during the 19th century to serve on the American frontier. On September 21, 1866, the 10th Cavalry Regiment was formed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. According to legend, during the 1870s exodus, more than 20,000 African Americans migrated to Kansas. They hoped their journey would take them far away from poverty in the South. Others escaped by being soldiers. They served in the segregated army units and fought in the Western Indian Wars from 1867 to 1896. According to legend, the men were called “buffalo soldiers” by the Apache and Cheyenne. The soldiers adopted the name as a sign of honor and respect. Units of Buffalo Soldiers answered the nation’s call to arms mainly in the West; however, they also served in Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Mexico. They had a huge impact on the Reconstruction era.

Another little-known contribution of the Buffalo Soldiers involved eight troops of the 9th Cavalry Regiment and one company of the 24th Infantry Regiment, who served in California’s Sierra Nevada as some of the first national park rangers. In 1899, Buffalo Soldiers from Company H, 24th Infantry Regiment, briefly served in Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant (Kings Canyon) National Parks.

U.S. Army regiments had been serving in these national parks since 1891, but until 1899, the soldiers serving were white. Beginning in 1899 and continuing in 1903 and 1904, African American regiments served during the summer at the second- and third-oldest national parks in the United States (Sequoia and Yosemite). Because these soldiers served before the National Park Service was created in 1916, they were “park rangers” before the term was coined.

One particular Buffalo Soldier stands out in history: Captain Charles Young, who served with Troop I, 9th Cavalry Regiment in Sequoia National Park during the summer of 1903. Young was the third African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy. At the time of his death, he was the highest-ranking African American in the U.S. military. He made history in Sequoia National Park in 1903 by becoming the Acting Military Superintendent of Sequoia and General Grant National Parks. Young was also the first African American superintendent of a national park. During Young’s tenure in the park, he named a giant sequoia for Booker T. Washington. Recently, another giant sequoia in Giant Forest was named in Captain Young’s honor. Some of Young’s descendants attended the ceremony.

In 1903, 9th Cavalrymen in Sequoia built the first trail to the top of Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet, the highest mountain in the contiguous United States. A trail I climbed twice as a young man, the first time with my family, and the second time in scouts with my dad. You can see me looking and feeling green with altitude sickness in both shots.

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GENEALOGIST- FROM KILLER CORN WE GO TO KILLER PIGS

My brother was always falling into something and almost dying. There was a creek in the Sierra, where the bank along the creek collapsed while fishing, and he had to be fished out. Later on, a visit to my grandparents’ farm in Iowa, which I mentioned in the last edition’s article on killer corn. KILLER CORN he ended up inside the sow’s pen, and my grandpa lifted him out by the collar as a sow was bearing down on him. He later fell out of a canoe, got his foot trapped in the creek bottom rocks, and fortunately had the presence of mind to leave the show behind and not drown.

I remember on another visit to the farm, it was time to ring the pigs, to keep them from rooting. My grandma herded the young pigs into the small wooden corral used for ringing, and then my masochistic job was to use the electric cattle prod to get them to try to go out the other end, where they would stick their head into the brace, and my grandpa would lock them in and ring their nose.

I am sure the ringing gave them murderous aspirations (along with a diet of Killer Corn), which could have led to death by animal. In the Middle Ages, they tracked death by animals. Nowadays, more people die from mosquitoes than from any other creature. Hippopotamuses are a distant second, which, considering that they are only native to one continent, helps you better plan your next canoeing adventure.

Below you can see that the killers in early France were pigs, weevils, donkeys, dolphins, grasshoppers, and snails, which, excuse the pun, would be a slow death.

In 1386, a pig was put on trial and executed in France. The pig attacked a child, who would die as a result of the mauling. The pig was arrested, kept in prison, and then sent to court, where it stood trial for murder, was found guilty, and then executed by hanging!

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GENEALOGIST- WHY DID THE PRESIDENT DRIVE TO CONGRESS?

Some of you have listened to the podcast version of the newsletter, which is entirely AI-generated. I always listen to the podcast, in case AI goes sideways and starts being offensive.

In one of the episodes, Brad and Sue, the AI podcast hosts, discussed an article about President Roosevelt traveling in Al Capone’s car to deliver the Day of Infamy speech and to ask Congress to declare war on Japan. Brad said something like, “President Roosevelt drove to Congress in Capone’s car.” FDR DRIVING

Because AI hasn’t likely ingested a whole lot about how presidents got themselves to Congress, they assumed that when he was in a car, he’d be driving. Most people would instinctively know that U.S. presidents don’t drive much, certainly not down the street to Congress, and that Roosevelt suffered from polio. While he had cars in Hyde Park and Warm Springs outfitted with hand controls, he didn’t have one in D.C. His most famous car, the Sunshine Special, is pictured.

You can read more about FDR and his cars at this link: FDR’S CARS

Here’s a succinct statement about AI works: “Unfortunately, not all data is equally reliable; the model doesn’t necessarily understand the difference between Encyclopedia Britannica and a random public Facebook post. The model, in other words, literally believes everything it reads on the internet.”

In the world of genealogy, AI presents a challenge and an opportunity. I’ve presented the dilemma of unsourced trees in past editions. https://gem.godaddy.com/p/552d0c1 https://gem.godaddy.com/p/5725fb1 There is a dopamine effect from clicking on the hints that Ancestry and other sites present, and from accepting them as fact. Nothing is vetted by Ancestry, Family Search, MyHeritage, WikiTree, or other sites, but people want to believe those family tree hints are factual, as you get to use the “easy button” and get the joy of adding another ancestor to your tree.

Unsourced family trees are nothing more than rumors, so if you want your family tree to be based on rumors, then at least make your tree private so others can’t use it as a source. While surname, date, and geographic similarities are tempting to consider as proof, they are at best circumstantial clues and should be presented as such.

I wish these sites would allow little question marks, rather than solid lines, to indicate the link between individuals on family trees, but I suspect most people looking for the quick effect of a dopamine hit wouldn’t want to stop making such a distinction.

The opportunity is that many people know they clicked on those hints and likely have someone else’s ancestors in their tree rather than their own, so they reach out to have us audit their tree and clean out unsourced and even unfounded information.

It will be interesting to hear Brad and Sue report on themselves.

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GENEALOGIST- MORE ON CHARTS

In December, I shared the various chart styles we can create. CHART STYLES

One of our clients inquired about having their family tree calligraphed rather than presented in conventional typeface. The calligrapher did a wonderful job in creating a beautiful heirloom. So, you can add this choice to your options.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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GENEALOGIST- THINGS YOU DON’T THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU’RE AT THE BEACH

I was out visiting my mom when, at breakfast, some Huntington Beach police officers sat down next to me. Since I was in Dana Point, with the expanses of Newport Beach, and Laguna Beach in between Huntington and us, I asked if they were on some sort of joint training mission.

Interestingly, they shared that they worked up and down the coast with the Border Patrol to intercept beach landings by securing the perimeter, from whomever, as cities like Huntington, Laguna, and San Clemente saw a sharp rise in landings in 2025.

San Clemente has become the first Orange County city to allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to install a surveillance system to monitor the coast. It’s a measure that has caused controversy. Officials say the high-powered camera will be on the lookout for panga boats and will help crack down on illegal immigration.

“It’s a serious public safety issue, not only for the community, but for the people that are being smuggled ashore,” said one councilperson. “We’ve had 18 panga landings on our beaches in the last year or so. Over half of all the Mexican pangas landing in Los Angeles and Orange County have happened right here in San Clemente,” Knoblock said. Knoblock saw a demonstration of the camera and said it is powerful enough to see if someone is smiling on Catalina Island. “They’re thermal so they can detect movement at night,” Knoblock said. “They can pierce through fog.”

In Ventura County, drug smuggling was the issue, as you can see in the photo below.

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GENEALOGIST- SOME ODD BABY NAMES FROM EARLY RHODE ISLAND

Longstockings probably got some usage in modern history, but fortunately the use of Longbottom died out.

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GENEALOGIST- PRESERVE YOUR FAMILY HISTORY, TODAY

Reach out to Dancestors Genealogy. Our genealogists will research, discover, and preserve your family history. No one is getting any younger, and stories disappear from memory every year, eventually fading from our ability to find them.

Preserve your legacy and the heritage of your ancestors.

Paper gets thrown in the trash; books survive!

Ready to embark on your family history journey? Don’t hesitate. Call Dan Nelson and get your project started!

 

 

 

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